The Eagle Catcher

by Margaret Coel

  “Let us pray,” Father John said, looking out over the crowded hall. The crowd fell silent. People set their empty plates on the floor, then straightened themselves in their chairs. Rose moved stiffly in her chair before seeming to settle herself, hands in her lap, rosary beads twined through her fingers. Vicky drew in a deep breath, waiting.

  The Catholic ritual would come fust, then the Arapaho. Just because her people had converted to Catholicism didn’t mean they’d given up the old ways of believing. Those beliefs were still strong as a lodgepole pine, with the new way merely grafted on. Vicky thought of what her grandfather had told her once. “We pray with our ancestors, and we pray with the long robes. You can’t pray enough.”

  “We ask Almighty God, our Creator and Savior, our Father and Brother, to be merciful and to show us, in His time, the place He has prepared for us,” Father John said. Then he began the first decade of the Glorious Mysteries, the Resurrection. His voice sounded low and calm as he led the Hail Marys. Everyone joined in the last half of the prayers, sending a low buzz through the hall like bees in a field of wildflowers. Vicky stared at the red-haired priest, his head bowed, and thought how different he was from other men she had known. He asked nothing from her, seemed glad just that she walked the earth. It had taken awhile to accept that he was as he appeared, all of a piece, seamless as a fine buffalo robe.

  She glanced around, half expecting to catch Ben’s black eyes riveted upon her. Two of his cousins stood near the door, but she didn’t spot her ex-husband. She’d heard he was working at the tribal ranch forty miles north, which meant he probably wouldn’t get to the southern part of the reservation very often. She began to relax with the rhythm of the prayers.

  Rose’s voice was calm and distinct beside her. She was another mother to Vicky—there was no word for aunt in Arapaho. After Vicky had divorced Ben and left the reservation, Rose had helped Vicky’s mother with the kids, Lucas and Susan. By the time Vicky had returned to the reservation, the kids were 18 and 20, off on their own in Los Angeles. Knowing her children would grow up in the Arapaho Way had made it possible to leave them. Still, it never left her mind that, to reclaim herself, she had lost her children.

  The murmuring of prayers stopped, and Father John began reading the Psalm: “Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord.” Then the Gospel of St. John about Lazarus’s death and Martha’s conviction her brother would not have died had Jesus been there, and Jesus’ assurance that whoever believes in Him, even though he die, shall live. Vicky knew the story by heart. There had been too many wakes.

  Father John stepped away from the casket and resumed his seat. A sense of anticipation filled the hall. Now the Arapaho ritual would begin with the cedar smudging.

  One of the Arapaho men walked down the aisle carrying a pan filled with cottonwood coals and cedar chips, which, Vicky knew, were really a mixture of pulverized cedar and earth and pieces of animal bones, representing all created things. He removed the lid and offered the pan to Will Standing Bear who stood up, grasped the handle with both hands and raised it above his head. The black vest he had on stretched upward over his long-sleeved white shirt. As the sweet smell of smoldering cedar wafted across the hall, little clouds of smoke rose toward the ceiling and hung in the air, symbols of purification and forgiveness and respect for all life.

  The elder’s voice boomed through the hall. His Arapaho words beseeched Shining Man Above to allow cedar’s smoke to mark Harvey’s way to the spirit world. Then he said thank you to Mother Earth who gives herself for our home, to sun who gives himself for light and warmth, to four-leggeds and wingeds that share their lives with us. Vicky understood most of the words, even though she didn’t speak Arapaho very well. Her parents had refused to speak Arapaho when she was growing up. They were not blanket Indians. They had been progressives.

  Will came down the center aisle pointing the pan to one side, then the other. Everyone reached for the smoke that flurried along the rows of folding chairs. Vicky pulled the gray wisps toward her, breathing them in. Smudging made her feel connected to her people, to all living creatures.

  The calmness that descends after a storm when the wind begins to die down, settled over Blue Sky Hall as Will walked back to the front. He set the pan on the floor and replaced the lid, choking off the smoke. Head bowed, he prayed softly in Arapaho for a moment before taking his seat. The hall was submerged in quiet. Vicky glanced about, catching Banner’s eye. The chief stood inside the front door. He motioned to her.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Vicky whispered to Rose, whose head was bowed in reflection. Wondering if Rose had even heard, Vicky got up and walked softly toward the police chief. Banner opened the door and stepped outside, as if he were confident she would follow.

  “Hear about Ernest?”

  Vicky nodded. There probably wasn’t anybody alive on the reservation who hadn’t heard about Ernest shooting up an oil pump. The news had blown through like tumbleweeds.

  “What happened when you went out to see Ernest Saturday afternoon?” An official note sounded in the chief’s voice.

  “Is this an interrogation?”

  Banner leaned against the wall and brushed one hand across his forehead. “Forget the lawyer stuff, Vicky. I just wanna know what set Ernest off.”

  “He was very drunk Saturday afternoon. Does that surprise you?”

  Banner laughed. “The sun shines. Does it surprise me?”

  “He’d already hit Jenny. He would have hit her again. Jenny didn’t want to leave at first, but she ran out with the kids as I was about to drive off. It was a big step. I took them to the shelters.”

  Banner nodded. “Yeah, and soon’s Ernest figured out Jenny and the kids were gone, he got in that old pickup of his. Went screaming down the road, probably doin’ a hundred. Wonder he didn’t kill somebody. We got three calls from folks yellin’ at us to get him off the road.”

  Banner glanced around, as if looking for someone to corroborate the story. There was no one else outside. Then he leaned toward Vicky and said, “Showed up outside Circle of Respect hollerin’ for Jenny to get her butt out. Would’ve tore the whole shelter apart if a couple of my men hadn’t got there on the double quick. Arrested him for disturbin’ the peace. We kept him overnight, but we let him go Sunday morning,” the police chief said, a pleading note in his voice. “If we kept everybody locked up for drunkenness and disturbin’ the peace, we wouldn’t have any room at Fort Washakie jail.”

  “How about assault? You could’ve charged him,” Vicky said. She felt her stomach begin to chum. Why was it that when a man hit his wife, it wasn’t assault?

  “You’re soundin’ like a prosecutor,” Banner said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Jenny refused to sign a complaint, as usual. She said she got a black eye by walkin’ into a door. Anyway, we got a hold on Ernest now, after that oil pump business. He’s at Riverton Memorial in detox.”

  Vicky drew in a long breath. “Father John could’ve been killed,” she said. She would never have forgiven this police chief and his methods if that had happened.

  “What about you?” Banner asked. “You shouldn’t have gone out to Ernest’s place alone, Vicky. You’re gonna get yourself killed one of these days.”

  “I know. I know,” she said, waving away his objections. She knew the unpredictability of drunks, but she had wanted to see for herself if there was anything to Anthony’s suspicions about Ernest. “Did Jenny tell you Ernest didn’t come home Friday night?”

  Banner pushed away from the wall and drew in a deep breath. “You think he killed Harvey?”

  Vicky took a moment before answering. “Ernest gets violent when he’s drunk, but ... Harvey’s murder took more planning than Ernest may be capable of these days. Still, where was he Friday night?”

  “Probably in a ditch somewhere too drunk to get home.” Banner said, squaring his shoulders.

  “Where was he Saturday afternoon?” Vicky persisted. “I heard about Harvey’s office.
Maybe Ernest broke into it.”

  “Lookin’ for what?”

  “Something about the oil wells that were shut down. Who knows?” She hadn’t thought about it until now, but it made sense.

  “The only thing the burglar was looking for was something in Harvey’s history files. Father John’s gonna put the files back together and try to figure out what’s missing.” Banner pulled in his lower lip and gazed across the open spaces. “Maybe Ernest was too drunk to find the tribal files, so he tore up the wrong files. It’s a long shot, but all we got are long shots. We talked to everybody camped around Harvey’s tipi Friday night. Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything. We got casts of a moccasin print and we got an eagle feather, but they don’t tie up with anything. I don’t wanna see Anthony go down for this any more than you do, Vicky. But I gotta tell you, chances are better’n good he’s going to.”

  It was close to midnight when Will Standing Bear raised himself off his chair in the front row and faced the crowd agam. The elder removed a buckskin pouch from somewhere inside his vest, close to his heart. Vicky knew the pouch contained the sacred red paint.

  Moving toward the casket, Will Standing Bear uttered the Arapaho prayers said only by members of the Eagle Clan, those who had the power to apply the cleansing paint that prepared a corpse for the spirit world. He smeared the paint onto his thumb and forefinger, then touched Harvey’s forehead and cheeks. Vicky knew he was painting the small red circles that would identify Harvey to his ancestors.

  In a year Will Standing Bear would paint the same sacred circles on the foreheads and cheeks of Harvey’s family to call them from the half-life, the mourning place spent half with the living, half with the dead. The sacred paint would give them strength to move forward into the new life, the life without Harvey. And tomorrow at the feast and the giveaway, after the funeral, the elder would paint everyone else who wished it, so that Harvey’s friends could move into the new life immediately.

  As Will Standing Bear returned to his chair, the crowd let out a long breath, as if everyone had forgotten to breathe and had suddenly remembered. People were yawning and rubbing their eyes as they picked up bags and sweaters and prepared to leave. A few friends would keep watch through the night with Harvey’s body. Anthony would stay, too.

  After walking her mother’s sister through the parking lot, Vicky waited as the old woman started the engine of her fin-tailed Chevy and turned on the headlights. Standing in the yellow glare of the other headlights switching on around her, Vicky watched the Chevy nose across the lot, up an incline and out onto Blue Sky Road. For an instant the headlights splashed across the white Cadillac parked on the other side of the road, silent and dark. Suddenly the Chevy squealed to a stop, and the Cadillac jumped forward and sped past, racing down the road, its red taillights fading in the darkness like the glow of fireflies.

  “What was that?”

  Vicky whirled around at the sound of Father John’s voice. “A white Cadillac parked across the road just took off.”

  In the lights washing through the night, Vicky caught the puzzled look on the priest’s face. “Only one person around here who drives a white Caddy,” he said.

  Vicky nodded. “What was Dorothy Bennett doing here?”

  17

  IT WAS THAT still time just before dawn when Vicky let herself in the front door of the rented bungalow in Lander. The town was shrouded in silence and the air cool with a faint hint of moisture. The day’s heat seemed a dim memory. Maybe it would rain, she thought as she flipped on the lamp next to the sofa. They could use a cleansing rain.

  Larry was stretched across the sofa cushions sound asleep, his blue tie unknotted at the opened neck of his crumpled white shirt. It startled her to see him. The idea flitted across her mind to let him sleep and go on to bed herself. Everything had gone out of focus. The murder of the tribal chairman, the almost certain indictment of one of the most promising young people on the reservation, the craziness of Ernest, the strange, complicated feelings she had for a man she had no right ...

  She closed the door on that thought. And now Larry was here. A good man, this Lakota. She was fond of him, but she wasn’t certain of the direction in which she wanted her life to go. There were no signposts in bold letters to show the way.

  She let herself down softly on the sofa next to the sleeping Lakota. He opened his eyes halfway, stirred slightly, and slipped an arm around her waist. She studied his face in the lamplight. It was pleased, satisfied, a faint smile playing around his mouth. He had a strong hooked nose, eyes set so deep they seemed blacker than they were, and full lips. His hair was long and black, sleek as silk. He had pulled it back in a ponytail held with a red woven band. He was handsome, no doubt about it. She never imagined she would become involved with a Lakota. Lakotas were the enemies of her people in the Old Time.

  He wanted more from her than she could give. He wanted a wife, a home, children. Why not? He hadn’t had those things yet. He was six years younger than she was. He’d just turned thirty-six last month. When he’d asked her to marry him this past weekend in Denver, she had put him off, pleading for a tittle time. But he had kept asking. There was the job in L.A., a new life, and he wanted her in it. He would keep on asking, she knew. He was a stubborn warrior.

  He pulled her toward him. and she felt herself relax against his chest. He wasn’t Ben. The other time had nothing to do with Larry, but it existed, it was part of her. There were scenes that flashed in front of her at unexpected moments. Now she saw herself folding two dollars with a coupon from the back of a box of rice. She licked a stamp and plopped it on the envelope and dropped it into the mailbox at Ethete. The cookbook would arrive in six weeks. It was a guarantee that she would be alive in six weeks. She had to be alive because her cookbook was coming.

  “What’s wrong?” Larry asked. Vicky realized she was crying.

  “Everything,” she said, sweeping the tears across her cheeks with the palm of one hand.

  She felt Larry kiss the top of her head, felt the warmth of his breath in her hair. “Why not let the fed find the murderer? That’s his job. If Harvey’s nephew gets indicted, you can do your job and defend him. It’s simple.”

  “That’s just it,” she said, sitting up on the edge of the sofa away from him. “Jeff Miller thinks he’s already found the murderer. He’s not looking for anybody else.”

  Larry swung his legs down to the floor and slowly sat up. She knew by the way he pulled off his tie and tossed it onto the coffee table that he didn’t like the drift of the conversation. Everything was simple to him, black and white.

  “Who wanted the tribal chairman dead?” Vicky asked, letting her thoughts tumble out. “Why have some Arapaho wells suddenly gone dry? What had Harvey been working on? Why would anybody care enough about what he had written in that history of his to tear the files apart?”

  “Why do you care so much?” Larry was looking steadily at her. There was silence between them. After a minute, Larry slumped back against the side of the sofa, his gaze still on her. “Now what?”

  “John O’Malley ...”

  “Who?”

  “Father John is going to put the history files back together. Maybe he can figure out what’s so important in them. I intend to look at the oil angle. There has to be some reason for Harvey’s murder.” She heard the hope in her voice. What was she hoping for? That Larry would understand ?

  Larry put his arm around her and pulled her close. She liked the warmth and comfort of his body—it was easy to succumb. “You don’t have to be so tough,” he said. “Not with me.” Brushing back her hair with his free hand, he removed her dangling silver earring and took the lobe of her ear between his lips. Then she felt the tip of his tongue in her ear. After a moment, he said, “No more talk.”

  Afterward, Vicky lay on her side and, in the golden light slanting through the half-closed blinds, watched Larry sleeping. His brown chest rose and fell with quiet rhythm above the top of the sheet crumpled around his
waist. She would have to give him an answer, but not yet. She wanted to put it off a little longer.

  18

  FATHER JOHN TURNED the Toyota onto Seventeen-Mile Road, following the procession of pickups and old cars that had departed from Circle Drive as soon as Harvey’s funeral Mass ended. The procession moved slowly down the middle of the blacktop, then veered right onto a narrow dirt path that led to St. Francis Mission cemetery. The cemetery sprawled across a brown bluff. Father Brad drummed his fingers against the metal frame around the passenger window. A black prayer book and a small container of holy water sat on the seat between them next to the tape player.

  Easing the Toyota to the side of the path, Father John stopped behind the other trucks and cars. A white canopy fluttered in the hot wind over a casket and opened grave a short distance away. Already seated in metal chairs under the canopy were Harvey’s family, Will Standing Bear, and several other tribal elders. The singers hovered over the drum, and Arapaho families crowded around, filling in the dusty, barren spaces between adjacent graves.

  Grabbing the prayer book and holy water container, Father John swung out of the Toyota and made his way along the narrow dirt paths between the graves. Each grave was covered with brightly colored plastic flowers and crosses of weathered wood. Some had carved inscriptions: “Lovely Mother.” “Here lies a Good Man that Cared for Children.” “A Generous Man with a Good Heart.” The white canopy over Harvey’s casket snapped against its ropes, and the hushed whisperings of the crowd dissolved as the priests approached.

  The young priest gasped, and Father John saw immediately what had caught his attention. On top of Harvey’s casket sat a large brown saddle, stirrups and straps coiled against the polished wood. Father John shot a knowing glance at his assistant, meant to say he would explain later how Arapaho chiefs, in the Old Time, were always buried with some belongings so they would have what they needed in the spirit world. Harvey would be buried only with his saddle, the symbol of his worldly goods.